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“What the hell is happening?” Oaklynn demanded, panicking along with me. “Should I get a doctor?”
“No.” Damien lifted a calm, reassuring hand. “He’s okay. It’s just a panic attack. He got them all the time when he was younger. He’ll be okay.”
His girl didn’t seem too reassured by that. “Oh God. What do we do? How do we help?”
Crouching before me, Damien’s face filled my vision. “What do you need, man?”
I shook my head. “Just time,” I managed to say between each grappled breath.
He nodded. “Okay. We’re right here with you, and we’re going to stay until it passes.”
I nodded and squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to see Oaklynn’s freaked-out expression anymore. And I must’ve tightened up too much because I lost all sense of space and time for I don’t know how long.
There was just a black void until Damien nudged me, calmly commanding, “No, don’t hold your breath, Fos. Exhale. Let it out.Breathe.”
I did, parting my lips and hissing out a long, unsteady breath. Then I inhaled deeply, and Archer nodded me along, smiling in approval.
“There you go,” he praised softly. “Nice and even. Now look at the ceiling.”
I darted my gaze up, following his instructions as he started what I knew was going to be the 333 rule.
“The floor,” he said next. And when I looked down, he ended with, “The wall.”
After following all three directions, he smiled. “Good. Now, lift your hand.” Realizing he must’ve bypassed the listening portion of the rule because it was so quiet in the stairwell, I lifted my hand, playing along.
“Your knee,” he added.
I bent up one knee.
“And your chin.”
I tilted my face up, and Oaklynn crouched down beside us so she could take my hand. “Wow. That’s actually working,” she murmured in awe before turning her gaze to her boyfriend as if he’d just performed a miracle.
He sent her a small smile. “We learned all the coping strategies to help Foster out in grief group.” Glancing at me in amusement, he nudged my arm. “Didn’t we?”
I knew he was remembering the very first time I’d flipped out in front of them, and I knew he wanted me to smile along at the memory, but I felt too shitty to smile. So I just nodded bleakly.
His gaze filled with concern. “But it’s been years since he had one,” he told Oaklynn as he kept watching me. Then, he murmured with narrowed eyes, “Or so I thought. How long has this been going on?”
I was tempted to lie and tell him this had been the first one in ten years, but with him looking at me intently, I couldn’t. “Since the first day she woke up,” I admitted, feeling my chin tremble with helplessness.
Disappointment filled Damien’s gaze. “Fos…”
“I know,” I started. “But I’m okay. I’m dealing with it.”
He shook his head, not accepting that. “I’m calling a meeting,” he announced.
With a cringe, I shook my head. “No. I don’t need that.” Didn’t matter how much I’d grown up and matured and knew how helpful they were. It didn’t matter that I trusted the guys with my life. I still hated meetings. They meant weakness and the inability to take care of problems on my own. I despised how much Istillneeded help after all these years.
Ignoring me, Damien pulled up his phone and started texting.
With a frustrated sigh, I lifted my hand to motion toward him in aggravation as I glanced at Oaklynn. “There’s no stopping him, is there?”
She smiled sadly and stroked a hand down my arm. “Let him call,” she said. “It’ll make him feel better.”
Thinking of it that way, I nodded. Because she was right. Damien would worry if I didn’t let him dosomething. And I hated worrying other people more than I hated meetings. So I hissed out a breath and allowed it to happen.
* * *
